Read Echoes for Free Online Page A

do.”
    “Why?”
    “My phone’s acting glitchy this week so it would take forever to search for anything. And my mother’s always on the computer and getting it away from her would require actually speaking to her.”
    “The library,” Helen said. “Fun, wow. I think I’d rather watch paint dry.”
    Normally, I’d agree. But I hadn’t been lying. I’d dropped my phone last week and ever since, it hadn’t been working properly. My father always went to the library downtown to do research. He was the editor for a local magazine and liked to do things, as he said, “old school.” I didn’t want to use the library in the school, either. Not nearly enough privacy.
    Or
, a little voice reminded me,
you could just ask Bree about your little research project. She might be able to tell you exactly what you need to know.
    Well, that wasn’t going to happen, at least, not yet. If this didn’t work, then I wouldn’t be left with many choices, especially if Ethan kept dodging me.
    I stayed with another group of kids walking home from school until I got to the library and I found a computer in a private corner. I didn’t have tons of research to do. Just one very specific word that had burned itself into my brain ever since Monday night.
    I already had a foggy idea of what I’d find, but I needed to know for sure. What I’d heard from Bree years ago was still in my head, distant memories that haunted me like ghosts, from her and her family who embraced all things strange.
    My hands were cold as ice as I phonetically typed it in to the search engine: U-P-I-R-I.
    And hit enter.
    There were a bunch of webpages listed, some of them in different languages and some about video and role playing games. But it didn’t take very long at all until a couple words immediately stood out from the rest of them and my breath caught.
    Upyri.
    Upyr.
    Vampyr.
    Vampire.
    Upyri
was another term for vampire—a vampire that was actually a disembodied wraith that could possess a human corpse. It had to then drink blood in order to survive.
    Did that mean the old man and the woman had been vampires?
Actual
vampires?
    It was impossible. Just doing a quick internet search didn’t mean anything. A word was just a word. Vampires didn’t exist in real life.
    Feeling stunned and sick to my stomach, I quit the browser and pushed back from the computer. This little research trip had proven one very important thing to me, something I think I already knew.
    Bree had definitely been trying to mess with me. She’d taken my fear and uncertainty and twisted it into something ridiculous just to scare me more than I already was.
    Vampires. Right.
    The only person who could help me was Ethan. I was going to find him and demand he tell me the whole truth about what happened Monday night.
    I didn’t want to be afraid of something that might not even exist. There had to be a reasonable explanation for everything. More reasonable than tales about blood-drinking vampires who hadn’t been seen for a hundred years.
    I headed to the exit feeling stronger than I had before.
    It only lasted a few moments.
    Upyri.
The woman with the knife had said that word. It had definitely been
that
word. She’d said my death would mark a new beginning for the Upyri.
    And then she’d tried to kill me.
    My anger faded, leaving only the sick feeling in my gut. What I’d seen the other night had been impossible to believe—normal human beings didn’t spontaneously combust like that. Normal human beings didn’t completely disappear leaving a burn mark behind as the only sign that they’d ever been there in the first place.
    The idea that something like the Upyri could exist, could actually be here in Ravenridge—every part of my sensible and logical side wanted to fight it. I’d wanted to learn the truth and deep down I’d known that truth might be hard to accept.
    Ethan hadn’t wanted to tell me anything at all about what had happened, but he’d tolerated my questions.